Microsoft, a Social Network giant

Computerworld reports today that Microsoft is to join the Web 2.0 data portability group whose members already include representatives from Google, Facebook and LinkedIn and Yahoo.

The interesting quotes from this article include

Microsoft is a stealth social networking giant, with more than 400 million users with accounts at Hotmail, Windows Live Messenger or both, according to an interview late last week with Adam Sohn, a director in Microsoft's online services business.

and

According to Nielsen Online, visit statistics from last August, 2 Windows Live Spaces and MSN Groups together make Microsoft the second-largest social networking provider, behind MySpace but ahead of Facebook and Classmates Online as well as Google and Yahoo's efforts.

We don't normally associate Microsoft with Web 2.0, but these statistics and Microsoft's B2B SaaS initiatives (Or using MS speak "Software + Services") indicate that Microsoft is still a force to be reckoned with and should not be underestimated in the Web 2.0 and SaaS arena.

SaaS meets Social Networks

Last last year,The Unreasonable Men wrote a short series of posts discussing the convergence of SaaS and Social Networks and whether they are actually becoming the same thing. An interesting article was published today in Infoworld which announced that SuccessFactors, a Talent Management SaaS company which recently IPO'ed

is using Facebook to allow a richer employee profile that goes beyond the structured data that is typically captured in a HCM (human capital management) service, according to Jim Holinchek, a senior analyst with Gartner.

I also believe Microsoft is planning to do a similar thing with CRM 4.0.

It will be interesting to see how things pan out here. I know myself and colleagues I have discussed this with like to keep a distinct barrier between personal and work networks. Sometimes they happen to overlap but that is by choice not by default.
I am not sure if employees will want their facebook information used in a business context. Even if there is an "opt out" option there could still be pressure to permit the link to occur from your employer.

Will this type of convergence be common in 2008 and will it be a success? We shall see.

Web 2.0 again!! and Social Networking.

I actually read a lot of the questions coming through on linkedin.com via igoogle.
As we discussed in some of my earlier posts the term Web 2.0 appears to have different definitions depending on who you talk to.

On linkedin, everyone is talking about Social Networking and Collaboration and defining this as web 2.0. (Everything is X 2.0 nowadays as if by putting the number 2 in front of a term we have suddenly and miraculously discovered a new technology)

So now Web 2.0 is social networking which also includes collaborative tools in the business environment.I am an avid user and supporter of these types of tools being it a wiki, blog or networking sites like
linkedin.com

Less focus is placed on line of business applications being transformed by Web 2.0 in particular SaaS. My interest is obviously biased towards this, but I think the success of Web 2.0 collaboration tools within a business organization actually hinges on the adoption of a SaaS mindset first.

By having these SaaS business tools in place first, it gives context and sensible subject areas to Social Networking and colloboration.

A good example I think is Life Science CRM. I read an excellent post today
Scott Monty

Pfizer is partnering with a social networking site and will get access to the thousands of doctors who network there. Now this is something that the Sales reps would love to analyze and review for the zipcodes in their territories and the best place for this would be in their CRM system. Not an easy task if you aren't using a SaaS application. By having it in CRM, it structures what is essentially unstructured information. I can picture one day a Life Science SaaS CRM solution which has a social networking and blog portal for doctors as part of its feature set.
(Although you have to be in compliance with all FDA regulatory requirements.)